four steps back
by Darkness-Heart
Summary: it just keeps going. [an axelroxas]


I would go so far as to say that it was rather uncomfortable, sitting there on that grey mound of rock. No matter how many times I would go there, to the graveyard, it always felt so foreign and utterly strange. I don't think I ever got over that feeling.

The boy was sitting in front of a grave next me, and I gave him a quick and courteous nod. Roxas was his name. He had been coming here for the past few years, and was now a familiar face. He smiled back, but only just so you could barely see the upturn of his lips. I focused on the grass and wondered when the sun had come up. Time had a nasty habit of passing me by, like an old friend he'd rather not visit.

Usually when you think of graveyards, you think grey, death, darkness, and rain. In movies, there is never a graveyard without rain. But today, the sky was pleasantly sunny and the sky was almost as blue as his eyes. He was looking at me with them now, and I knew he was about to speak..

"How many years?" he asked evenly, and staring straight ahead at nothing. A simple question, he so spoke softly that I could barely hear his voice above the light wind. I pondered, and counted on my fingers one by one. It was remarkable how I let the days slip from my grasp.

"Eight years." I replied, and paused a moment to let my words sink below the skin. "You?"  
"Thirteen." he stated readily, as though he had been waiting for my question. A loud noise shook us from our own little world, and his eyes refocused on the family that was heading towards us with a bouquet of red roses in hand. They stopped short in front of me, or rather the grave, standing rigid and holding their mouths closed tightly as though they were afraid to breathe. The silence was enough to chill me more than any wind could. I let my eyes travel over them, scrutinizing each as though they were part of a lineup.

They all looked so much older. She was pregnant… and the only one with the decency to be crying. He was married. The tallest one took a moment to look at the blindingly blue sky before gently dropping the roses at my feet. I clenched my fist and I jerked my head away from them to looked at him sitting next to me, whose face appeared void of any emotion. Upon closer examination, I thought I could see a hint of wistfulness behind his much practiced façade.

"Mine stopped coming a long time ago. I don't have anyone left." Roxas spoke again, voice cracking slightly at the end of the sentence as he turned his face away. I looked down at the roses, and thought of correcting him. We were more than just strangers.  
"You've got me." For lack of better things to say. He was frowning, and something seemed irrevocably wrong about it.

We sat for a moment content to just to be there. The sounds of the family getting into their car echoed mockingly in my ears like background music. Slowly I reached down my arm to pick up the roses. I held them in my hands for a moment, then rapidly began to shred them.   
"I hate roses." I declared, throwing the pieces carelessly into the wind and watching them sail across the sky. I jumped off the grave and sat down beside it, tracing my fingertips across the name engraved on the cold stony surface. The surface that reminded me so much of a storm. Something was running through my head, like it had been ever since eight years ago.

You think you're going to love this life forever. You want to think that nothing is ever going to change. That your family will never forget you.

But when you're dead, everything seems so different.   
I tried to go about it carefully, but I still ended up shattering the silence into a million tiny pieces. "So. You still haven't moved on?"

"Nope." Roxas leaned against his gravestone.

"Do you know what you're waiting for?"

"Nope."

I sighed theatrically, and crossed my arms before looking straight into the horizon. Nothing to hide, nothing to remember. Nothing left.

"Me neither."

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In case you didn't know, Axel is the speaker. So yeah. I wrote this for English Class, wanting to do something different with the prompt, "visiting relatives." Needless to say, it didn't work out quite as planned.


End file.
